Posts Tagged ‘AT&T’

As I reported here on this blog on June 10, the Xperia ion is coming to AT&T on June 24. AT&T formally announced the Xperia ion with a solid release date and a price tag. The Xperia ion will be available for $99 with contract and requires a data plan. This is a full $100 less than comparable phones from Samsung and HTC. For $99, the ion is priced to sell, and Sony hopes to capture a larger share of the Android market in the United States, where it has been largely overlooked.

My source told me the other day that they hoped to release the phone with Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), which contributed to the delayed launch. There was no mention of ICS in the press release, so it looks like it will indeed be released with Gingerbread. I would expect the upgrade to come soon however, especially knowing that the upgrade is already in the works. The version of Android aside, this phone is very able to compete in the high-end phone market. Here is a review of the specs:

4.6″ 16 million color TFT display, with a resolution of 1280×720 pixels

1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 MSM8260 dual-core processor

Adreno 220 GPU

1GB RAM

16GB eMMC internal memory

microSD up to 32GB

Supports UMTS/HSPA+ 850/1900/2100, GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 bands, and LTE Band IV and Band XVII

This phone should do pretty well against the Samsung Galaxy S III and the HTC One X. The Galaxy has a larger battery and Gorilla Glass, and HTC has a larger battery. They are otherwise quite comparable. Sony does have a lot more at stake than the other two manufacturers, at least in the United States. This will mark the beginning of Sony’s solo comeback run, having bought out Ericsson’s stake in Sony Ericsson.

Sony has a lot of catching up to do, particularly in mind share. People need to think of Sony when they think of Android, rather than Samsung, Motorola, or HTC. The Xperia ion is certainly a move in the right direction. AT&T has not done so well historically in getting the word out about Sony Ericsson phones. Hopefully Sony’s marketing department will be up to the task.

I was searching for any current news about the Xperia ion from Sony, and found a link to AT&T’s website. I followed the link to a product page featuring a case for the ion. The product is the DualTek Rugged White/Gray Case, priced at $40. With an in-store release date no later than June 24 seeming increasingly likely, the fact that this product is on AT&T’s site is encouraging.

Interestingly, searching for ion on the AT&T site will only provide results for lithium-ion batteries. The case does not show up in the search results. It could be that Google is indexing things early, as with the initial June release announcement, or it may simply be new enough that AT&T’s search feature has not fully indexed the site.

One of Sony’s best features is the camera. Motorola is about to release a phone (Atrix 3 perhaps?) with a 13MP camera, so Sony would do well to release this 12.1MP camera phone in advance, and quickly follow up with the U.S. version of the Xperia GX, which also features a 13MP camera. It would not be good to let Motorola cut in on Sony’s primary differentiating feature.

I am looking forward to trying out the ion, and seeing how well it does against the competition. It looks it won’t be too much longer until I get the chance. Are you interested in the ion, or are you holding out for Sony’s next generation? Let me know in the comments.

The Xperia ion is finally on its way to the United States, having made stops in Taiwan and Hong Kong already. After six long months, the ion is nearly here.

Today I was in Sony’s flagship store in Century City, CA. Every time I find myself in a Sony store I make a point to ask for any information on the release of the ion. Today I was pleasantly surprised to learn of the imminent launch. The sales rep I spoke to said that it would be released the weekend after Father’s Day. The sales rep was restricted from telling me the specific date, but did tell me that it would be either Friday, Saturday, or Sunday of that week. This was in store, and not a pre-order date. The sales rep said I could walk in and pick the phone up that weekend. This, and another prediction I saw regarding the release date both added up to an in store date of June 24 at the latest.

As we talked, the sales rep went on to say that one of the reasons for the delay was a desire on Sony’s part to release the ion with Ice Cream Sandwich. If this is true, and if they succeeded, the ion may be coming out with Android 4 after all. This would go a long way to silence the dissenters who have so far only griped about the operating system on an otherwise outstanding phone.

Excited as I was upon receiving this information, I looked for any other reference to the 24th. I only found a Twitter comment by Sony about a surprise they have in store for us on June 11. See the tweet here. A lot of speculation so far has been regarding either an Xperia Play 2, or a major improvement to the number of games in the PlayStation Network for Android. I am wondering if this will instead be the pre-order date for the Xperia ion. We will know soon enough.

With the customs delay of the HTC One X and the only recent release of Samsung’s Galaxy S III, I think the Xperia ion will be able to make a very large splash in the coming weeks. Until then, at least we know the wait is nearly over.